


Midnight Madness

by angeljackson_74, Remlundskan



Category: New Kids On The Block
Genre: AU, Angst, Demon possession, F/M, Ghosts, Haunted Houses, Horror, Love, Love at First Sight, Lust, M/M, Murder, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Soulmates, brother/brother incest (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-04 22:56:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5351459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeljackson_74/pseuds/angeljackson_74, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Remlundskan/pseuds/Remlundskan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bunch of college students spending Halloween weekend in an abandoned hotel, that's supposed to be haunted. Sounds like a fun way to spend the weekend. But then, things start to happen, and some of them won't leave the hotel alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“The Rosewood Hotel…” A picture of a glamorous hotel appeared on the big screen and a few of the students whistled at the sight. “…Was finished in 1885 and quickly became known for its many scandals. After just a few years, there was a shooting, resulting in the death of four bank robbers and two police officers.”

“Sweet!” one of the students said. The professor ignored him and went on.

“1924, an actress by the name of Brenda Gold… her real name, for those who know about her, was Ether Goldman… was found hanging from the ceiling in her hotel room. Rumors said that it was because her lover, one of her co-stars, who also happened to be a married father of two, had told her that he was going back to his wife. On the mirror she had stuck a note that said…”

“’I aimed for the stars and they came for me!’” Another young man said, looking up from his notes. “She didn’t do it because of her co-star, though! She did it for the fame! She wanted to become a legend, and she figured that the only way to achieve immortality was to live hard, die young and leave a beautiful corpse.”

“Thank you, Mr Knight!” the professor said, giving the young man a nod. “Then, in the early 50’s…”

“They say you can still see her!” the young man went on. “Sometimes, you can see her hanging there, her eyes bulging out like this…” He tried making his eyes ten times bigger to illustrate how the eyes of the dead woman looked, and a few of his classmates made the appropriate sounds of admiration. “And there’s also a little girl there! Eva or Emily or something like that! People say that she was murdered, and buried somewhere in the basement or something and you can still hear her, at night, banging on the walls, calling for her mummy… Seven years old… That poor girl!”

“Yes, thank you, Mr Knight! Now, as I was saying, the hotel has been in the Wahlberg family for generations, but the last scandal sent them running, for reasons unknown and the place has been empty for almost ten years now.”

“There was a murder!” the young man interrupted again, gaining the attention of everyone in the class. “A crime of passion. The weird thing is that they never found the guy who did it, all they found was a woman and her lover. The murderer, which was probably her husband, vanished without a trace and there are those that say that if you listen carefully, you can hear him walking around with his big hammer calling her name, looking for his cheating wife… ‘Carol… Carol…’”

“Well, this weekend, we’ll all find out for ourselves just how much of a ghost story that really is, Mr Knight!”

In a matter of seconds, he once more had the attention of the students. Knowing that they wanted to hear more, he dragged it out, just to tease them. That would teach certain people to interrupt him during class.

“This weekend?”

“Dude, that’s Halloween! We’re going to a haunted hotel during fucking Halloween?!”

“Language, Mr Clarkson! The current owner, Mr Donnie Wahlberg, has kindly allowed us to spend the night at Rosewood Hotel, to see if there is any truth in all these stories or if that is indeed all it is… Ghost stories! And what better time to do it them during Halloween?”

“You shouldn’t make fun of the dead, professor!” a young woman said, without looking up from her book. Some of her classmates whispered and snickered behind her back, but she pretended not to hear them. Professor Starr looked up at the young woman and sighed.

“And I’m sure that some of you will probably have the time of your lives. Now, I want everyone punctual and outside the hotel by 5pm Friday afternoon, and yes, presence is mandatory, Mr Wood!”

The man in question didn’t answer. That could on the other hand have something to do with the fact that he was fast asleep, his head resting on the shoulder of the girl sitting next to him. Professor Starr shook his head slightly. He really liked these kids, but sometimes, they just weren’t paying attention.

“Wait, we’re missing out on Gary’s Halloween party because of this?” another man cried out in dismay, looking as if the world had tumbled down before him.

“Think of it this way, J”, the man sitting next to him said, as he laid his arm around his friend’s shoulders; “plenty of empty rooms for you and me to… get lost in…”

Professor Star watched, not without disgust how the two men kissed each other. It was no secret that Jon Knight, Mr ‘I know more than the professor’ and his… boyfriend Jordan Wills, was one of the so called ‘power couples’ in the university. They were young, attractive and in love and not afraid to let people know it. The other students respected that, Starr knew this, but that didn’t mean that he approved of their public displays of affection. Especially not in his class.

“Mr Wills”, he said, adding a bit of strength to his voice, to get the attention of the man in question, “at what time did I tell you to be outside the hotel?”

Jordan, lost in the eyes of his boyfriend, blinked a few times and looked over at the professor, but couldn’t come up with an answer.

“Well? I’m waiting, Mr. Wills”, the professor said, feeling somewhat vindicated now that power was restored.

“I…” Jordan looked around and noticed one of the kids a few chairs back, tapping his fingers on his knee, over and over. All five of them, tapping away, as if trying to get someone’s attention… and then he looked over at Jordan and splayed out all five fingers on his knee, a clear signal. Jordan blinked and said: “5pm, sir!”

Starr fumed a bit, but didn’t say anything about it, he simply nodded and told the class:

“Mandatory! That means all of you! Mr Wahlberg has agreed to let us stay the weekend and I expect you all to be on your best behavior, and anyone caught misbehaving… anyone…” He didn’t finish his sentence. Let them wonder what possible punishment he could bestow upon them. True, there were only 15 students in his class, but mandatory was mandatory and if one of these kids so much as thought about becoming sick or turning up late, Starr would make sure that kid was punished for it.

At the end of class, Jordan and Jon happened to walk by the kid who had helped Jordan out and Jordan gave him a quick nod and a smile in gratitude.

“Thanks”, he said. The young man shrugged and smiled back. His eyes were incredible. They were huge, the kind of huge that you only ever saw in cartoons, and they were as clear and blue as the Mediterranean Sea. They were the bluest eyes that Jordan had ever seen. Had this guy been in their class long? How come he hadn’t noticed?

“Happy to help! The name’s Joe! Joe McIntyre!”

They shook hands and Jordan introduced himself and his boyfriend. Before either one really understood how it happened, they sat at a table in the lounge, having coffee, talking as if they had known each other for ages.

“You guys looking forward to this little field trip this weekend?”

“I am!” Jon said, his eyes positively shining with excitement. “I’ve done some research and even though the hotel has been closed for the past two decades or so, people still seem to find a way in. Kids sneaking in to make out wind up getting lost in the dark… And doing it on Halloween? It’s mind boggling! Y’all remember that student who went missing a few years back, right? Long or Ping or something like that! It was all over the news! Him and his girlfriend had snuck inside and they were screwing around in one of the hotel rooms, when there was a weird noise. Ling-Ping went to investigate, and never came back! His girlfriend swore that she heard him scream, though, but they never found anything! No body, no nothing! Some say he’s trapped inside some sort of mace and the only way for him to come out…”

“You’ll have you excuse him”, Jordan interrupted, before Jon started a whole seminar on the subject, “he gets like this when he’s excited about something… which I usually encourage, but not right now!”

“Fuck you, J, you know you like it when I talk to you!” Jon objected.

“Dirty, Jon!” Jordan clarified. “Talk dirty! Right now, you’re just boring me to sleep!”

Jon’s answer was to hit Jordan over the head and Joe’s eyes watched the obvious love between the two of them. They were so alike, they could almost be mistaken for brothers.

“Listen”, Jordan said, after giving Jon a quick kiss, “we’re hanging out with a friend of ours and his girlfriend after school. We’re going to that new club down town. You wanna tag along?”

“Yeah, sure!”

“Sweet!” Jon and Jordan exchanged a look. They both felt that this was a good thing. They were forming quite the posse, what with Danny and Sally, and Sally’s friends, and now this guy. It was official! They ruled this place! By the time they graduated, they would be the kings of the university!

And if no one ever found out the truth about them, they could probably continue ruling wherever they went.

Joe looked in the mirror, as he got ready to go out with Jon and Jordan and their friends that night. This was a good thing, he could just feel it. Hanging out with the kings of the university… Oh, yeah, things were definitely looking up. As long as no one found out about his extracurricular activities, he would be fine.

\----------------------------------------

Two days later, ten students were standing outside the once so magnificent Rosewood Hotel, waiting for the owner to show up. Maryanne had valid excuse for not being there, since she had to go back home on account of her father being in hospital after a car accident, and Philip was not allowed to leave school property, having been caught cheating on his latest exam and was awaiting expulsion.

Jon, Jordan, Joe and Danny stood together, talking about what they might actually find in the hotel. Sure, it wasn’t the ideal way of spending Halloween, Danny had muttered quite a lot about needing his exercise, but they were all feeling curious about the haunted hotel, and they were, in fact, looking forward to this.

“This is just a waste of time”, a young man called Jeremy said, shuffling his feet and smoking his third cigarette since arriving. “Why spend two whole days in a crappy, dusty old building, looking for something that doesn’t even exist.”

“You’re just not open to new possibilities!” Danny’s girlfriend Sally said with a pout. “Who’s to say that ghosts aren’t just as real as you and me?”

“Shit, Sal, next you’ll be telling us that you believe in aliens and vampires as well!” Jeremy muttered.

“Well, you’re here, so we have evidence of extra-terrestrial lifeforms, at least!” another girl pointed out, not looking at anyone. Jeremy scowled at her and there was a quiet ‘ooooh’ from the other students. Danny, being who he was, prepared himself for a fight in the girl’s honor, when a black, shiny car showed up down by the gates. It drove up to the big entrance of the hotel where it stopped, and a young man stepped out and looked at all of them.

“Well… There hasn’t been this many people in the hotel since the 80’s”, he said with a crooked grin. “Welcome! I’m Donnie Wahlberg, owner of this… fine establishment! Why don’t you all join me inside, and I’ll tell you a bit about this place!”

He looked at each and every one of them, hoping that they couldn’t tell how nervous he was about this. He didn’t like being here, but it was a matter of grave importance. If he screwed this up, then that was it for the Rosewood hotel. The hotel that had been in his family for generations would be torn down and a new, ‘bigger and better’ hotel would be built in her place. He couldn’t let that happen, he thought to himself as he looked at the students, trying to determine who would be the first to run screaming for the exit…

And then, he found himself staring into the most incredible eyes he had ever seen. The young man smiling in anticipation, standing with what Donnie assumed were his friends, was the most beautiful guy that Donnie had ever seen in his life. And for someone who had been interested in nothing but women, since the age of two, feeling such a powerful pull towards another man was the chock of a lifetime. But he couldn’t deny that what he felt was attraction. The guy was fucking gorgeous! And judging by the look in his eyes, he felt something as well. It was as if something had clicked in the back of his head… he just wasn’t sure what it was.

“Anyway”, he said, shaking himself up a bit, “please, follow me!”

And he walked up the stairs to the big doors. He only paused for a moment, his hand holding the keys shaking slightly. How long had it been since he was here last? How long had it been since it happened? If he were to close his eyes, he could still hear the screams… But he forced himself to keep his eyes opened, unlocked the door, took a deep breath and opened the door.  
This was going to be a very interesting weekend, indeed!


	2. Chapter 2

"Ok, if you could all follow Mr Wahlberg and then gather in the lobby, I will be able to issue you with your cameras" Professor Starr said, ushering the last of the group up the front steps.

"Cameras?!” Jeremy, as usual, looked suspicious.

"I have decided that some of you will be equipped with a camera and document everything you see or hear, during your stay here. Those of you without a camera will record everything down in these journals" He replied, handing several students a pack containing everything they would need.

"Yo Jon, looks like we're getting a camera" Jordan called out, hoping to get an enthusiastic response.

"Yeah, cool" Jon called back, but he was not able to take his eyes off the owner of the hotel, and the shy smile on his face was not for Jordan this time.

Professor Starr handed out 5 cameras in total, Danny Wood, Jordan Knight, Reema Zardeh, Jeremy Clarkson and the very quiet girl, who hadn’t taken her eyes away from the interior of this beautiful old hotel.

"Helen, could you please come and collect your camera?" Professor Starr asked for the third time.

Helen stepped forward and walked slowly towards the Professor.

"Fucking freak" Jeremy muttered under his breath, just loud enough to be heard, as she walked past.

"Mr Clarkson, one more word from you and I will personally make sure that you don’t get to graduate from this univerity until your grandchildren are in high school. We are all here for the same purpose, is that understood?"

Jeremy looked furious, but said nothing. Helen shrugged her tiny shoulders.

"It's alright, the last laugh will be on him this weekend" She said, taking her stuff. As she passed by Jeremy, she muttered *Happy fucking Halloween, dipshit”, and resumed her place right next to the giant staircase.

"Told you she was a freak, you all heard that, she threatened me!" Jeremy shouted, pointing a finger at the young woman. Helen looked straight at him, not even blinking, and smiled, somewhat smug, when Jeremy actually flinched.

"Alright, settle down and please, listen to Mr Wahlberg! Good luck, Mr Wahlberg, they're all yours!" The professor said, taking a step back, giving the floor to Mr Wahlberg.

"Ok Ladies and Gentleman, what you are now standing in used to be the Grand lobby of the Rosewood Hotel, which was owned by my great great grandfather, I understand that Professor Starr has filled you in on the history of the place, so I won't bore you again with the same details. All I would like to point out is if you have any questions, please feel free to ask and i'll be happy to answer them for you. And, since I know you all had something more fun to do this Halloween, I will try and fix something up tomorrow, a little Halloween party of sorts. Also, during your stay can I remind you that you are guests of this Hotel so can you please respect everything that is here. Are there any questions?" 

"Yeah, I have one!" Jordan piped up.

"Go ahead!" 

"Is this place really all the things Professor Starr has told us about, or is it just your lame attempt to reopen your business?" 

"Mr Wills! -I do apologize, Mr Wahlberg", The Professor said.

"That's quite alright, I’ll answer it, I have nothing to hide" Donnie said, shrugging his shoulders. "You see, Mr…”

“Wills! Jordan Wills!” Jordan introduced himself, taking an unconscious step closer to Jon as he spoke. He might as well have peed all around Jon, it was clear to anyone that he didn’t like the way Jon was looking at this new guy and was, quite blatantly, marking his territory.

“Thank you! Well, Mr Wills, until your Professor contacted me and asked if he could rent the place for your course, I had no intention of opening the place, too many horrid things have happened over the years…” He took a few seconds. The screams were still there. ‘Just ignore them’, he told himself, ‘just ignore them and they will go away!’ “But your Professor here had me intrigued as to what you would be doing so I agreed. Once Halloween is over, the doors will be closed and locked again!"

"Hope that answers your question, Mr Wills”, Professor Starr muttered, “Now if you can all gather in close, I will assign your rooms to you."

"Well, we all know Danny and Sally will be having a banging weekend" Jordan laughed. “You’ll probably scare away any ghosts that might still be here!” Sally glared at him and Danny muttered a:

“Dude, come on…”

“Like you and Jon are gonna be living like monks, alone in a hotel room together!” Reema pointed out. Jordan simply grinned, flashing his dimples at her, making her, once again, curse the universe for not making him straight.

"Hate to burst both your bubbles, but Mr Knight, you will be sharing with Mr Clarkson!"

"Aw, man!” Jeremy exclaimed, not even bothering to hide it. 

“What? Me and him?! I’m sorry, professor, but that’s just not fair!" Jon protested.

"Mr Mills, you will be sharing a room with Mr McIntyre!" The Professor said, ignoring Jordan's moans. He continued on, giving out rooms to the rest of the class.

"Ms Zardeh", he then said, "you and Ms Gramling in one room!” 

“Awesome!” The two girls were already close friends and had no problem with this arrangement.

“Ms Williams, you and Ms Nordin in the other!"

Jeremy laughed out loud.

"Sally got the freak! Careful, Sal, she might try to exorcise demons while you sleep!"

"For once in your life, would you please shut the fuck up, There aint no one who thinks you’re funny!" Sally hit back.

All the guys laughed and even Helen managed a small smile in gratitude.

"What about me?” Danny asked. “Who am I sharing with?"

"You have a room all to yourself, Mr Wood" Starr replied. He realized that it might have been a mistake, but this was coming out of his own pocket, and he had thought it was a good idea at the time.

"Cool!" Danny said, looking at his girlfriend. Sally smiled back at him.

"Right, you have 15 minutes to get settled in and then we all meet back here" Professor Starr said.

Donnie went behind the desk and started picking out keys for everyone. The Rosewood was an old school hotel and Donnie’s father had wanted to keep the old traditions, using keys instead of cards. They all scattered as soon as they got hold of the keys, but one of them, the tall gorgeous one with the piercing eyes, stayed behind for some reason. His roommate had already snatched the key and was halfway up the stairs.

“Jonny, you coming?” Jordan Wills was asking and Donnie, having a keen eye for details, noticed right away that he didn’t like his boyfriend talking to other men. A bit territorial, aren’t we? Donnie thought to himself. He didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, though, so he didn’t say anything.

“Yeah, in a minute! –Mr Wahlberg, if you don’t mind me asking…”

Donnie smiled at him, realizing, perhaps a second too late, that he was using his most flirtatious smile.

“Of course not, what can I do for you?”

Jordan muttered something and started walking up the stairs. Donnie couldn’t really say that he was sorry to see him leave.

“I was just wondering…” Jon started, coming closer to the desk, “Your great great grandfather built the Rosewood, correct?”

“Correct! I’ve spent most of my childhood in here, running up and down those very stairs…sometimes, I would hide in one of the unoccupied rooms and ‘dissapear’ for a few hours. It drove my mother crazy, but she was always so happy when I came back, so she…” He stopped himself! What the hell?! He barely knew this man, had met him literally minutes ago, and here he was, telling him stories from his childhood? What was wrong with him, he had never experienced this kind of… connection with another human being before. He shook himself mentally, and went on: “Anyway, you… You had a question?”

What was interesting, though, was that the object of this sudden fascination was just as enthralled, as if they were being pulled together by some unseen force. He watched the other man blink a few times, a light blush on his cheeks, and Donnie’s heart did a funny jumping thing when he saw that. How was it possible that a man could be so insanely cute just by blushing? And since when did Donnie Wahlberg find other men cute?

“Right! Well…I’ve heard…. The rumor is that they are tearing this place down, to build a casino or something… Is that true?”

“I don’t know exactly what they are planning to build, it could be just another hotel, as far as I know, but yes, it’s true. By the end of June, actually, is when they start…tearing the place down.”

“How do you feel about that? You grew up here, you must have a thousand memories connected to this hotel.”

“I will always have those”, Donnie said softly. “Look, I’m not gonna lie to you, it’s painful, but… Look around, she’s had her fifteen minutes of fame, the old girl, there is nothing left for her to do… But oh, the things she has seen… The things I have seen within these walls… I could give you a tour if you want!”

“Oh!” And damn, if he didn’t become even more adorable when he was flustered. “Well… I…”

“All of you, of course!” Donnie added quickly, wishing that he knew the best way for removing the foot stuck in his mouth. “I didn’t… I wasn’t… Shit, that came out wrong…”

“No, it’s ok, really…”

“It’s just… It’s not that I am… I’m not…“ Donnie was starting to sweat. This was embarrassing! Protesting a bit too much, Wahlberg, he’s gonna think you’re a psycho! “I wasn’t trying to…”

“I am!”

“Really? You are?” Donnie asked and wanted to kick himself the very next second. This wasn’t going at all the way he wanted it to. But on the other hand; what the hell *did* he want? “Oh, right, I forgot, you and that other guy, he’s your…” Was that fishing for information? Hell no, he was just asking a simple question. 

“No! No, he’s my brother!”

The funny thing was that he looked just as shocked over having said that, as Donnie was at hearing it. Brothers? They sure as fuck didn’t act like brothers? Then again, they might be from a very… very close family. Or maybe they were lovers, and he just didn’t want Donnie to know about it. But why would he lie about something like that… unless he wanted Donnie to think that he was single… and available…

“Oh! Ok, then…” Donnie groaned and hid his face behind the palm of his hand. This was beyond embarrassing! “Oh, God, I promise, I’m not always like this!”

“Only around gay people?” 

“Well, no… Only around people I find extremely attractive!”

And there, time started moving again. Donnie really couldn’t believe what he had just said. His mouth had said words he never even thought about before. But now that it was out there, he didn’t feel like taking it back. Because the way those remarkable eyes were shining, he could tell, after only ten minutes, that there was something between them, and it was not only mutual, it was stronger than anything he had ever experienced before in his life.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Well, this will be fun, don’t you think?” Sally said as she placed her bag on one of the two beds, hoping that the other girl would open up to her somehow. Helen had never been very outspoken or, for that matter, friendly, to anyone for over a year, and everyone assumed that she was either a freak or just a stuck up bitch with no friends. The fact that she had gotten so passionate in Professor Starr’s class lately, ever since he started talking about the paranormal and the supernatural, didn’t exactly help either. She was obviously into this stuff, so why not try and get to know her, just a little bit, to see what she was really like.

Helen looked up from her bag, and with a frown on her forehead, she shrugged and went back to unpacking her stuff.

“You know, we’ve been in Starr’s class together for over a year now, and I still don’t know anything about you!”

No reaction this time. Sally sighed and decided to be the bigger man here or, in this case, woman. She walked over to Helen’s side of the room, extended her hand and said:

“Hi! Sally Williams!”

Helen stopped unpacking and looked at the outstretched hand.

“What do you want?”

“Just wanna say hey!” Sally replied with a friendly smile. Helen wrinkled her forehead again.

“Is this a joke?”

‘Shit’, went flying in Sally’s head, ‘she’s really messed up!’

“No joke, I just want to get to know you!”

“You sure about that? I thought it was a fate worse than death to make friends with the university freak!”

“I can think of a few things worse than that!” Sally admitted, pleased that she at least had gotten Helen to talk. And she might be mistaken, but it looked like there was a spark of interest in those eyes. They were amazing, really, it was hard to tell what color they were. One second they seemed green, the next they were brown, and for a brief moment, they almost seemed black.

“For your information, I’m not here to have fun!” Helen finally said, turning those freaky eyes back to her bag. “I’m here for the spirits!”

To be fair, Sally thought the concept of ghosts was intriguing, so she accepted the cue and said:

“Well, it *is* Halloween! Do you think we will see any this weekend?”

Helen sighed and for once, there was real emotion in her voice when she said:

“I hope so! Maybe that will prove to people, once and for all, that I’m not crazy!”

\-------------------------------------------------------

Jordan would never admit it to anyone, except his big brother, of course, but he was feeling a bit antsy about sharing a room with a stranger. Joe was a great friend and in the few days that they had known each other, Jordan had really started to enjoy his company, but ever since they were kids, Jordan had gotten used to having his big brother right there beside him. Even if one of them were sick and their mom had said that they couldn’t, The Knight brothers still managed to find a way. And when they had gotten older, and hormones started racing, hands started moving into previously unchartered territory and, as things progressed, into forbidden territory, the need to sleep in the same bed took on a whole new meaning of almost epic proportions. Going to college together, getting a room together, it was all part of the plan to make sure they would always be together.

And now, they would be in separate beds, in separate rooms, for the first time in a very long time. Jordan threw his bag down on the floor and sighed. This really sucked.

“You do know that he’s just down the hall, right?” Joe asked from the other side of the room. Jordan nodded.

“It’s stupid, I know! I just… I’m used to having him in bed right next to me… That’s really sad, right? I sound like such a girl!”

“I think it sounds sweet!” Joe said, already inspecting the room. “You can sneak over to him later, you know… Sally’s totally gonna do that tonight… or he could… Holy SHIT! J, come look at this!”

Jordan dropped his clothes on the bed and went in to the bathroom, where Joey was pointing excitedly to the ceiling. Even though they had been written more than 70 years ago, and even though someone obviously had done their best to try and wash it away, the words were still easy to read.

“I aimed for the stars…”

“And the stars came for me! Jordan… We are in Ethel Goldman’s hotel room. This is where she hung herself! This is just too cool!”

Jordan agreed as Joe went to write down his discovery in the journal prof. Starr had provided him with. It was kinda cool!

“Just as long as she doesn’t turn up in the middle of the night with a noose around her neck!” He said.

“Well… It *is* Halloween tomorrow, you never know…”


	3. Chapter 3

Donnie had to laugh. This guy was hilarious! And what the hell was wrong with him, he never acted like this with anyone. It was weird, but in a way it almost felt like… like they had known each other their whole lives. He didn’t know how he knew that, he just did. They belonged together. How’s that for crazy. Maybe coming back to Rosewood wasn’t the best idea, after all. It was messing with his head, all over again. But it didn’t feel like it did before. In fact, something was different. And he knew that it had something to do with this guy, standing right in front of him.

And they had not even touched yet.

“Ok… what the hell is going on here? I don’t…” He leaned in closer, not even thinking about it, just needing to be closer. “I don’t even know your name!”

The smile he got in return was enough to set his entire body on fire. Who was this guy and where had he been all this time?

“Jonathan! Jonathan Knight! Call me Jon!”

“John… I like it… I have a feeling I will be saying it a lot this weekend!”

He was *never* this bold with anyone! He leaned in even closer, getting a whiff of the other man’s after shave and was about to do some serious fence-jumping, when a voice suddenly interrupted them.

“Jonny!”

His beautiful knight in jeans and t-shirt took a step back instantly, almost looking guilty. He mouthed the word ‘Later’, though, and then turned around to face his… brother, apparently. And apparently, those two needed to get their stories straight, because last time he checked; brothers did not kiss like that. He probably should feel like shaking his head at them, and smile indulgently, but what he did feel was something completely different. He was jealous! That guy was all over what was clearly Donnie Wahlberg’s soulmate! And that made Donnie feel slightly… well, to be honest… possessive!

“You should see my room, Jon! You’re not gonna believe this, you know that actress that you told us about, Ethel Goldman, the one that hung herself because she thought it would make her immortal…”

“Jordan! You actually listen to something I’ve said, I am impressed!”

“Bite me! Well, me and Joey… we’re staying in her room!”

Donnie hid a grin, wondering how long it would take before this guy came running down the stairs, screaming about seeing Ethel Goldman hanging in the bathroom. He would bet good money on three hours. Tops! Ethel was good at scaring away the weak ones… 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------

Sally combed through her hair one last time and turned towards Helen.

“There, you ready to go?”

“Almost! Just one more thing to do…” She rummaged around in her bag and smiled to herself when she pulled out a small package that looked weirdly familiar to Sally.

“What’s that?”

Helen held it up for the other girl to see.

“Salt!”

Fifteen different warning bells set off in Sally’s head. Who the fuck brings salt to… well, anywhere?! Maybe the girl really was crazy, after all. But all she said out loud was:

“Why would you bring salt to a hotel?”

Helen looked at her, as if deciding whether or not she should say anything, and then she shrugged her shoulders.

“Trust me, you’ll thank me later!”

Sally’s heart started beating away in confusion and, might as well admit it, a bit of fear. She suddenly missed her boyfriend and couldn’t wait to get out of the hotel room.

“Ok, I’ll see you downstairs!” she said, flung the door open and all but ran downstairs to where the others were gathering. Danny smiled at he saw her and she went straight into his arms.

“You ok, babygirl?”

She nodded. No use telling Danny about what she had seen. She was supposed to try and make friends with Helen. Running away like that probably wasn’t a good place to start. She made a mental note to make amends later on. But seriously, though, who did that? It was just salt! Maybe Jeremy was right!

\---------------------------------------------------------

Jeremy looked at the contents of his bad and scoffed. This was a complete waste of time. Who in their right mind would believe in such a thing as ghosts. Only freaks like that psycho bitch Helen. Chick was infuriating, the way she talked, the way she dressed, looked at him with those stupid, big eyes… like she knew something that he didn’t. Jeremy hated that. But of course, everyone was always sticking up for her, even when she wasn’t even in the room with them. It’s like he wasn’t allowed to have an honest opinion anymore. Like he was the only one who saw her for what she really was. 

A crazy bitch!

His so-called ‘roommate’ hadn’t shown up yet, and Jeremy was willing to bet his last penny that he was still downstairs, eye-fucking that hotel manager. So much for that whole sticking to just one person for the rest of your life-bullshit. It sickened him that people have so completely forgotten about things like that. Was he really the only one who saw the world for what it really was?

He sent a quick text to his two best friends, telling them that this sucked worse than a five dollar hooker, and left the hotel room. He was barely out the door, heading down the hall towards the staircase when he heard it. Someone was crying. But it was the heartbreaking sobs of a child, not the crying of a young woman. And sure enough, when he turned around, he saw her. A few feet away, he saw a little girl in a white cotton dress with red and yellow dots, shoulder length blond hair and the saddest eyes he had ever seen on a child. Her face was dirty and she was sitting by the wall, crying, like she had absolutely no one left in the world. Jeremy wasn’t all that fond of kids, but there was something about the way that those sobs tore into his very soul that made him take a step closer.

“Hey, kid, what are you doing here? This place is a dump, it’s not a safe place for a little girl. Where are your parents?”

The girl stopped crying when he spoke to her and for a second, she look startled. But then, she seemed to decide that Jeremy was someone to be trusted, and she sobbed:

“They went out! I’m supposed to stay here until they come back… They said not to move… but they never came and I’m hungry… Please, mister… have you seen my mommy and daddy? I want to go home now!”

Jeremy couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What kind of people would leave their kid in a place like this, with no one to take care of her? And where the hell were her parents, anyway? Out partying? Man, some folks really didn’t deserve to have children! Unless… No! No, parents wouldn’t do that to their kid, that’s just not right. Had they… abandoned her? Kid couldn’t be more than 5 or 6 years old! What the hell, this wasn’t just neglect, this was child abuse!

Jeremy crouched down in front of the sad little girl, trying out a smile that he hoped was friendly enough. He wasn’t sure how to talk to kids, especially crying, abandoned ones, but he gave it his best shot.

“Don’t worry, kid, we’ll find your parents. We’ll call child protective services and the boys in blue to help me look for them, how’s that?”

The little girl gave a tentative smile and Jeremy’s heart swelled at the sight. When she was smiling, she was adorable. She still needed to wash up, though, she looked like she hadn’t had a proper shower for at least a week.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, ok?” he said, standing up, reaching into his pocket for the key. ”What’s your name, princess?” The word slipped past his lips without him even noticing.

“Elisabeth Marie Gordon! What’s yours?”

“My name is Jeremy!”

Elisabeth smiled brightly at him.

“You are a really nice boy, Jemmy!” she said and he had to laugh at her adorable innocence. He had been called many things in his life. Mean, obnoxious and bully were a few of those, but nice? Nope, couldn’t really say that he had heard that one before. He found the key and put it in the lock. As soon as the door was unlocked, he turned towards Elisabeth, and stretched out his hand towards her. Just as she was about to put her tiny hand in his, though, there was a shout from the bottom of the stairs.

“Clarkson! You’re the last one, dude, we’re all waiting for you!”

Jeremy looked up, irritated and shouted back:

“I’ll be right there, where’s the fucking fire?”

And then he remembered that thing about not using bad words in front of little kids and he looked down, ready to apologize to Elisabeth, but the girl was gone. That fool Danny had probably scared her off, shouting like that. Some people really had no idea how to deal with innocent children.


	4. Chapter 4

As soon as everyone was downstairs, Donnie took them on a tour of the hotel, showing them the great dining hall, the outside pool (“Which, I’m sad to say, haven’t been used for many years, and the only thing you would find down there were old leaves and cigarette butts and the occasional empty beer can or wrinkled magazines!”), the dance hall (“I was thinking we could have our Halloween party in here!”) and the most haunted hotel rooms (“I doubt we’ll get to see any ghosts, though, it’s still way too early for them!”). He told them everything he knew about his old home, answering politely when they had a question and kept on saying, over and over, how glorious it had been, back in the old days.

It was obvious to everyone that the Rosewood had a special place in his heart.

He knew that he was avoiding one room in particular, though, and a small part of him actually hoped that no one had told them about it, that they had no idea what had happened, so that he wouldn’t have to say it out loud. He hadn’t been able to sleep properly before coming back here, worried about what they might ask, worried that he would be forced to go back inside that room, worried that it would be too much for him. But so far, they all seemed more interested in the ghost stories and the celebrities that used to visit and he was just starting to relax…

“So in which room did that murder take place?”

‘Donnie, run! RUN!!’

Donnie blinked a few times. No, he didn’t hear that.

“I… Murder?”

“Yeah! The one that the professor told us about, the guy who murdered his wife and her lover with a fire ax or something!”

‘Stop it… No, honey, please… Please, don’t… NO!’

Donnie took a few deep breaths. He was shaking again! ‘Shut up!’ he told his brain. ‘Shut up, I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want to remember! I shouldn’t have come here, I shouldn’t be here…’

And then, the voices suddenly stopped, just like when you mute the sound on the movie you’re watching. He opened his eyes, not even realizing that he had closed them, and looked down at his arm. The shakes were gone! 

And someone was holding his arm.

“You ok?” The loveliest man he had ever seen asked him, his green eyes so gentle and caring. The same question that he had been asking himself for the past hour or so came back with a vengeance: ‘Who *are* you?!’

“I’m fine! Thank you! It’s just… It was a long time ago, and it’s not exactly a pretty story… Although I guess it would be suitable for Halloween… Anyway, who’s hungry? Unfortunately, the sous chef quit decades ago, but we could order some pizza.”

He took a few steps back and turned to go back the way they had come, when he heard one of the other kids, her name escaped him, say something to her friends:

“You know, if that Carol chick really was having an affair, then I don’t really understand why…”

‘Shut up!’ he told his brain, but he opened his mouth anyway.

“Alma!”

“Excuse me?”

He stopped and looked at them, praying that his face was a neutral mask of indifference.

“Her name was Alma!”

It was his heart’s chosen that asked the question he really didn’t want to answer.

“How do you know?”

‘Don’t say it!’ his brain screamed at him. ‘They will never stop asking about it if you tell them!’

“She was my mother!”

And with that, he turned and walked ahead of them. The further he got from the man of his dreams, the louder the voices got, the crying, the yelling, the screaming, and he could hear himself, a boy of 8, desperately begging for his mom to come back to him, as the cops tried to tear him away from her lifeless body.

He walked faster, suddenly not caring if the others were following him or not. He needed some fresh air. And, above all things, he needed to stay as far away as possible from room 34.

\---------------------------------------------------------

There were a few tense seconds of stunned silence, before professor Starr finally cleared his throat.

“Alright, now that you’re all settled in, I have some assignments for you.”

“Yeah, we know, find the ghosts!”

“Well, yes, that’s one of them. IF there are any ghosts in this hotel, make sure you get them on camera. You see something out of the ordinary, something that can’t be explained, you document it. And most importantly, never go anywhere alone. People have gone missing from this place, I need you to remember that!”

Jeremy muttered and ‘bullshit’ and ‘stupid fairytales’, but professor Starr ignored him.

“Whether or not this is just a big old house with a man in a sheet scaring people, I want you to keep an open mind. Oh, and another thing, and this goes for every single person here, right now; I will not have any one of you running around mr Wahlberg, asking him questions about the murder, is that understood?”

“Dude, it was his mom?!”

“That’s fucking heavy!”

“Language, ms Zardeh, if you please! I hope you all realize just how much it took for him to come back here, after something like that! I will not have you asking him a bunch of questions that will make him uncomfortable, do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir!” Jon said, saluting. Jordan sniggered at him. Eventually, they all promised to be on their best behavior.

“Good! I’ll go do some damage control. Take a moment to look around, familiarize yourself with the hotel, learn where everything is. It’s still early, let’s reconvene in two hours and… try not to break anything.”

He turned and followed Donnie.

“So… we’ve got two hours to do nothing?” Reema asked.

“This sucks, so hard!” Jordan sighed. “In fact, you know what? This sucks so hard, it could give out tips to five-dollar hookers!”

“Dude! That’s disgusting!”

Jeremy took out his phone and then said some really bad words.

“What is it?”

“No reception! Phone’s dead! Fuck! This weekend just went from bad to worse.”

Danny took Sally’s hand.

“Come on, babygirl, let’s check out that pool again!”

“Are you crazy, that was so nasty!”

“How would you know? We had to look at it from the inside. I say, we go out, see if we can find any sea monsters lurking around.”

Sally raised an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah, cause that’s exactly where you would find a sea monster, in an old, abandoned pool outside an old hotel.”

But she went with him anyway. Some of their friends watched them leave, all of them thinking the same thing: those two are so right for each other!

“Starr is right, though, we should team up. Make sure that no one wanders off on their own.”

“Yeah, he’s right! Mel, you wanna hang with me for a few hours?”

“I think I will do just that, thank you very much, ms Zardeh!”

“Why, it’s my pleasure, ms Gramling!”

“Oh, get a room!” Jeremy muttered, causing the two girls to turn as one and grin at him.

“We already have one!” they said. And with that, they left in the same direction as the professor.

Jeremy looked around. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t really put his finger on what it was. And then it hit him. People were going off in pairs or, like the case with Jordan, Jon and Joe, in threes, but he couldn’t really remember if he had seen Helen with anyone. In fact, when he thought about it, he couldn’t remember seeing her at all. Not since…

“Fuck!” She’d been gone since they left the kitchen. Stupid bitch, she was probably off doing something weird, like summoning a demon or some shit like that. Didn’t she know that this place was dangerous? People had gone missing, she wasn’t supposed to just… wander off on her own.

Shaking his head at the stupid girl’s stupidity, he told his remaining classmates that he was going back to his room, and then took off as fast as he could. Damn that stupid, irritating little weirdo with her big eyes and soft voice, she was always way too trusting. Anything could happen to her.

\---------------------------------------------------------

Helen walked slowly along the corridor, singing to herself. No one seemed to have noticed that she took a walk on her own, which was fine by her, and no matter what that Wahlberg guy said, the hotel wasn’t that big. She would have plenty of time to check every floor and be back in time for pizza.  
Most of the doors to the hotel rooms were locked, which made sense, she figured, but if no one had stayed her for 20 years, then why bother with the locks?

“May I help you, miss?”

Helen turned around and saw a young, black maid standing behind her. She took a deep breath.

“I can’t seem to find my room!” she said, smiling apologetically, hoping that the rapid beating of her heart wasn’t too loud. The maid nodded. Her smile was friendly, and Helen relaxed a bit.

“What number are you in?”

“27! I’m sorry, I can't read your nametag... What’s your name?”

“I’m Tonya, miss!”

Helen took another deep breath.

“So, Tonya… Have you been working here long?”

“Going on three years now, miss! I came here in… -24!”

Helen nodded, still smiling.

“Do you like it here? Are they… treating you nice?”

“Oh, yes, miss! One mustn’t complain! Now, let me show you back to your room!”

“Thank you, Tonya!” Helen checked her pocket for the key and when she looked up, the maid was gone. Helen felt her heart pounding with excitement. “It was nice to meet you!” She kept on walking, a lot more confident this time. ‘That’, she thought to herself, ‘was one!’

\---------------------------------------------------------

Melissa looked around to make sure that no one saw them, while Reema was working on picking the lock to the door.

“I’m not sure about this, Ree, isn’t this sort of… oh, what’s the word I’m looking for?...”

“Exciting?”

“Illegal!”

“What? He did say to take a look around. We’re just taking a look around!”

“I’m not so sure he meant for us to break into someone’s office, Ree.”

“It’s not an office, it’s a control room! That’s way better than an office! Check it out”, Reema said, as she opened the door. “I told you this would be fun!”

Mel looked at the room with all the monitors and computers and weird gadgets that she didn’t even know what they were for and then looked over at her friend.

“Where’s the fun?”

“You’ll see!” Reema seemed right at home with all the strange buttons and gadgets, so Mel flung herself down in one of the chairs and waited. “If I’m right, then every single room has a security camera somewhere. Every hotel does, but they claim that they don’t because if people found out about it… Well, you can imagine, finding out that someone is watching everything you’ve been doing when you thought you were alone… Sure, I understand the ‘why’, if there was some suspicion of foul play or some shit like that, having it on tape would be crucial, but… It’s also fun for checking out… other activities as well.”

“Are we seriously going to spy on people? Our own friends?!”

“Oh, come on, Mel, where’s your sense of adventure? We’re here, we’re gonna be here for the whole weekend, we might as well get something fun out of it. So… You wanna see what people are up to when no one is looking?”

Mel tried to think of a reason why this was a bad idea, but she couldn’t deny that she was curious. So she just shrugged and waited while Reema worked her magic.

“Let’s see… Sally and Helen were in… 34, I think… No, wait, that was Danny… -You think he’s entertaining himself, all alone in that hotel room?”  
Mel giggled. She kinda wanted to know! So Reema pressed some more buttons, and checked all the monitors, until she found the one she was looking for.

“There!” she said, pointing. “There he is!”

They both moved in closer and Reema raised the volume, so that they could hear what was going on. Danny wasn’t doing anything in particular; he was pacing back and forth, mumbling to himself.

“What’s he doing?”

“Sssh!”

They watched Danny for a few seconds, giggling as he moved his arms around, and then, they heard him mention Sally’s name.

“Just do it!” he told himself. “Just do it, just say… Sal… No! Not ‘Sal’… Sally! Yeah! ‘Sally…’ Fuck, just get on with it… And no walking… down on one knee…”

Hands over their mouths, the two girls watched Danny go down on one knee and hold out his hand as if talking to someone.

“Holy shit!” Reema said behind her hand.

“He’s gonna ask her to marry him!”

“That is so great, they are so cute together!”

“Yeah… Oh, speaking of cute couples… You wanna see what Jon and Jordan are up to?”

“Hell yeah!” Mel was really getting into it now, and this was actually more fun than she had expected.

Reema looked at the monitors, checked the computer screen, and pressed two more buttons.

When they saw the room that Jordan and Joe shared, though, they were a bit disappointed. Only Jordan was there, and he was just lying on the bed, reading a book.

“Boring!”

Reema smirked at her friend. This gave her the perfect opportunity to stare at the perfect specimen for a while.

\---------------------------------------------------------

Jordan looked up from his book when there was a sudden knock on the door. And then, Jon came in, closing the door carefully behind him.

“Where were you? I’ve been waiting for ages!”

Jon opened his mouth to speak, and then stopped himself.

“Is Joey here?”

“No, he’s still checking this place out, I think he went with Ree and Mel to the dining hall. We’re safe! So, tell me!”

“I was talking to Donnie, make sure he was ok! Shit, J, he is so… It’s crazy, I’ve read about him online, I’ve seen his picture in the press, but to actually talk to him… He is nothing like I thought he would be! He’s smart, he’s funny and he’s so fucking gorgeous that it hurts just to look at him. Sometimes, when he looks at me, it feels like he’s fucking me with his eyes… I can’t explain it, it feels like I’ve known him all my life!”

“Well, look at you…” Jordan gave him a teasing grin. “Are you falling for the guy, big brother?”

“No!” Jon objected, but it didn’t exactly sound like a firm ‘no’. (And in the control room, Reema and Mel looked at each other. If Jon’s obvious infatuation and admission about being attracted to someone else had them worried, Jordan’s reply had them both sitting straight up, not even breathing, in complete shock. Mel’s mouth was hanging wide open and Reema’s eyes were as big as saucers. That didn’t mean what they thought it meant, though… did it? That was just something people said… right?!)

“I don’t know”, Jon finally admitted, “He… It’s the cutest thing, he calls me John!”

“That’s your name, smartass!” Jordan pointed out.

“No, he pronounces it like John, with an H, not Jon!”

“But you hate it when people do that!”

“I know! Like I said, it’s crazy, but… when he does it… I like the way it sounds… my name in his mouth like that…”

Jordan stared at him (and in the control room, Reema and Melissa were doing the same, but for totally different reasons).

“Oh, my god! You are!! You’re falling in love with him!”

“See, that’s just it, J, I think… I think I have always been in love with him! Remember that time, when mom took us to that fun fair and that creepy guy came up to us, do you remember what he said?”

“The guy was a creep, bro, I was busy not pissing myself!”

“He said: ‘Many lives, two bodies, but one soul, be patient and you will find him!”

“Jon, the guy was a pervert! Mom almost set the cops on him, remember that part?”

“I’m serious, J, I think the guy was talking about me and Donnie!”

“Excuse me?”

“I think we’re soulmates!”

“How about that, my big brother falling for a millionaire!” Jordan teased, and in the control room, Mel looked over at Reema, who still had her eyes glued at the monitor. ‘This is so messed up!’ she whispered, and was immediately hushed by her friend. “Jon, you do realize that he’s probably got a bride picked out for him since he was in diapers.”

“Dude!”

“No, I’m serious, mom will be so proud!” He was snickering as he spoke, though, so he didn’t really *sound* serious. Jon, however, looked deadly serious.

“There’s something else, too!

“What?”

“I told him!”

“About what?”

“About us!”

For a few seconds, there was complete silence 

In the control room, both Reema and Melissa were holding their breaths. This was so not what they had expected. Not in any way, shape or form.

“We should leave!” Mel whispered. Reema didn’t even look at her.

“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen!” she said, and Mel had to admit that she was sort of relieved. There was no way she actually wanted to leave now, this was way better than anything she could have ever hoped for. It wasn’t what they had expected, but they were dying to find out more.

“Are you out of your FUCKING MIND?!” Jordan suddenly yelled.

“J, I swear, it was an accident…”

Jordan seemed to take a few calming breaths to keep in control.

“You… told an absolute stranger… about… Why?!”

“I don’t know, I didn’t even think about it, it just… came out and…”

“Fuck, Jon, I fucking… How are you going to explain to him that your brother suddenly sticks his fucking tongue down your throat?”

“Well, I didn’t exactly plan it, did I? Anyway, how was I supposed to know that you were gonna kiss me, first thing you do when you came back downstairs?!”

"Because as far as the others know, I’m your fucking boyfriend! What do you think would happen if they found out the truth?”  
Jon looked miserable.

“Jon…Either you, or I, or both of us, would get kicked out, faster than you can say ‘Incestuous scandal on high society college!’ Jon, mom and dad would find out!”

“Look… I’ll talk to him, ok, I’ll… I’ll tell him that I didn’t want him to think I was taken, because he’s so ridiculously attractive… I’ll fix it! Trust me, ok, bro? Just relax! Come here…”

Jon walked over to Jordan… his *brother* Jordan… and pulled him close for a hug. 

“Nothing will keep me from you, little brother! Ok? We’ll be together forever!”

He neglected to mention that as he held his brother close, the one that popped up in his head was not Jordan, but Donnie Wahlberg.

\---------------------------------------------------------

This time, Reema actually looked away from the monitor to look at Mel. This was actually happening, right before their very eyes. If they wanted to, they could make those two do basically whatever they wanted… Mel shook her head. Reema nodded in agreement. There was no way they would ever tell anyone about this. It wasn’t their place to tell people. Reema suddenly grinned. Her eyes did the talking, because she didn’t want to speak and somehow ruin the moment. She raised an eyebrow at her friend. ‘How awesome is this?’ Mel couldn’t help but smile back and nodded. 

They watched Jon and Jordan for a few more seconds, and then, Reema quickly started pressing buttons to find another room.

“No one!” she said. “Neither living or dead!”  
“Neither living or dead!” Mel agreed. “See if you can find Professor Starr! I’ve always wanted to know what he does when he thinks no one is watching!”


	5. Chapter 5

Professor Starr looked around as his students finished their dinner. He really didn’t like staying in this place longer than it was absolutely necessary; it gave him the creeps, but he had to make sure that they were on their best behavior and that no one sneaked off in the middle of the night. Mandatory was mandatory! Not that they would encounter any ghosts or spirits, but these kids needed to learn how to work together and not spend their days ogling at each other like a couple of love-sick puppies. He had glanced over at Daniel Wood and Sally Williams during dinner, sitting together, looking like some human version of Lady and the Tramp. It wouldn’t last, he predicted. By graduation, both of them would be dating other people.

Clarkson was being his usual loudmouth self and Starr glared at him. That young man had been rude to every single person that he had ever come across. Starr knew that the young man had potential for greatness, and he really wished that Jeremy would just get a grip and stop being so disrespectful to everyone, stop acting like a spoiled little rich kid and actually do something with his life.

In fact, that’s what they all needed, the whole group, to get their acts together and prepare for the cold harsh reality of the world outside. They had spent their lives being protected, and Starr felt that as their professor, it was his duty… no, his responsibility, to make sure they knew what was waiting for them. They were all privileged, from wealthy families, and they had to learn that one day, daddy’s money wasn’t gonna bail them out like it had in the past. They needed to learn how to behave, how to take responsibility for their actions, how to make it in the real world.

They all needed to be more like Mr Wahlberg!

Mr Wahlberg was standing by one of the tables, acting very much like the hotel owner he was, talking to his guests, making sure that everything was to their liking. Very intelligent young man, that one, so polite and down-to-earth, but after just two seconds of conversation with the man, Starr had seen that the emotional scars of his traumatic childhood still haunted him. Maybe coming here wasn’t such a good idea, but he had done it anyway, and Starr had a huge amount of respect for that. And he really had done a remarkable job, fixing the place up for them. Starr had been convinced that it was gonna be dusty and murky, and smell of rats and dead flowers, but the whole hotel looked absolutely spotless, as if it was still up and running.

Maybe, just maybe, if he ignored all the brewing tension, they could get through this weekend without any major incidents. The kids would have some fun, they would learn and they would go back to school on monday knowing a little bit more about what ‘living’ was actually about.

\---------------------------------------------------------

A FEW HOURS LATER

Sally smiled to herself as she got out of bed. She had been lying awake for what seemed like hours, waiting for Helen to fall asleep. The floor was a bit chilly, so she put on her robe and some socks as she went over to look out the window. The sky was so black it was almost scary. She couldn’t even see any stars.

It was ten minutes past midnight!

“Happy Halloween!” she whispered to the darkness. Absentmindedly, she brushed away some salt that Helen must have spilled earlier during the day. Her head was too filled with the whispered promises that Danny had filled her ear with during dinner. All she had to do now was to sneak out and hope that no one caught her on her way to Danny’s room. Lucky bastard, getting a room all to himself.

A tiny noise made her jump and she looked over at Helen, but the girl was sleeping soundly, lost in dreamland, gently snoring. Sally smiled to herself again. Helen might be a bit weird, but she was alright. They were already becoming good friends. And Helen sure seemed to know a lot about ghosts and goblins and all that, so she was probably the best choice for a roommate in this place.

As she approached the door she noticed that Helen had spilled some salt there as well. Shaking her head slightly, she brushed it away with her sock, and opened the door as quietly as possible. Nothing! Coast, as they say, was all clear. By now, she was positively giggling, feeling like a naughty schoolgirl skipping school to go make out with her boyfriend, and she almost ran down the corridor and turned left, not stopping until she was standing outside the door to room 34, knocking four times.

No answer. She tried again, a bit harder this time. Finally, she heard footsteps and the door opened.

“Hey, babe!” Danny was grinning at her, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. His massive, tattooed body was glistening with sweat, indicating that he might have done some exercising before she arrived. “Sorry, I had my headphones on! Get in!”

Her smile was back. Damn, how was she so lucky, as to get her hands on the hottest guy on campus?

“I’m just gonna jump in the shower and then I’m all yours!”

Sally was practically drooling as her eyes wandered over his half naked body.

“No!” she said, firmly, closing the door behind her as she started removing her robe. “You need to do me! Right now!”

She locked the door and let the robe fall to the floor, standing naked in front of him. Watching the way his eyes moved all over her, always gave her a thrill and this time was no different.

“I was hoping we could… you know… talk… for a bit…”

“Oh, we will!” she promised as she came closer, wrapping her arms around his manly waist and inhaled his scent. “After you fuck my brains out!”

“How are we gonna talk if I fuck your brains out?”

Sally looked up at him, into the eyes that she loved so much and smiled.

“We’ll find a way! We always do!”

Danny gave her a slow kiss. Sally briefly hoped that her fellow students had been as smart as Danny and brought their earplugs, but as Danny’s hands started to move over her body, she decided that she didn’t care. Let them hear it. They might learn something!

\---------------------------------------------------------

Jeremy woke up to the sound of a child crying. It didn’t take more than a second to remember the little girl he had seen earlier. That poor thing, he had completely forgotten about her. He sat up in bed and noticed, not very surprising, that there was no one in the other bed. Some people really had no sense of decency, Jeremy thought to himself. All they ever think about is getting laid. And trapped somewhere in this den of filth was that sweet, innocent little girl.

He got up and put on some sweat pants and a t-shirt. It was pitch black outside, and there was no way of knowing what time it was, because his fucking phone wasn’t working properly. Sure, the others said that they had the same problem, and sure, that hotel owner had said that reception was pretty bad, but Jeremy was convinced that everything that happened, happened only to him. Why was it that bad things only happened to good people? Ok, yeah, he wasn’t what most would call ‘good people’, he knew what they said about him and they were right, but it was his life, and none of their business, so who gave a rat’s tiny ass what they thought?

The sobbing went on and for some reason, Jeremy’s heart ached when he heard it. She sounded so sad, so helpless, like she had no one…

Well, that wasn’t true! Now, she had Jeremy! He ran out of the room. It sounded like she was downstairs. A small part of his brain thought about all the leftovers after dinner and wondered if that poor girl had eaten anything today, or if she had eaten anything, at all.

“Elisabeth…” he whispered to the empty corridor. “Where are you, princess?”

The crying didn’t stop and it sounded so close. He ran down the stairs, but couldn’t find her anywhere. Once again, he called out her name, a little louder this time. 

“Elisabeth, it’s me, Jeremy… Jemmy!”

“What are you doing?”

Jeremy all but jumped out of his skin as he heard the voice behind him, and turned around to see that hotel owner-guy staring at him. For a moment, he thought about telling the dude to either go back to bed or go fuck himself, but Elisabeth was still somewhere in this hotel and they needed to find her. They needed to look for her, every single one of them.

“There’s a girl here! I think her parents abandoned her, she was right outside my room earlier today and she’s somewhere… she’s just a kid, maybe six years old, and we need to find her. We need to wake up the others, organize a search and rescue or some shit like that…”

He didn’t like the way Mr Wahlberg was staring at him. It almost felt like he knew something that Jeremy didn’t and Jeremy hated not knowing.

“Mr… Clarkson, isn’t it? What did the girl look like?”

Jeremy had half expected the guy to tell him that he was imagining things and that he should go back to bed, so it took him a few seconds to conjure up an image of the little girl in his mind.

“Blond hair… brown eyes… sad eyes… She said I was a nice boy…” He frowned, why had he even mentioned that last part?

“Wait, you talked to her?” Mr Wahlberg seemed genuinely surprised at this. “Did she say anything?”

“What did I just tell you, she said I was… Look, it doesn’t matter, I think she’s trapped somewhere!”

“Was she wearing a white dress, Mr Clarkson? White cotton dress with red and yellow spots?”

Jeremy took one step closer. This guy knew about Elisabeth and he hadn’t done a single thing to help her?! Mr Wahlberg didn’t really look like the guy who would be mean to little girls, but Jeremy knew from experience that looks could be deceiving.

“You knew she was here?”

“Go back to bed, Mr Clarkson, there’s nothing we can do for Elisabeth.”

“What the fuck, dude, we can’t just… She’s just a kid, we have to find her, she could be anywhere!”

“We can’t find her, Mr Clarkson! No one has ever been able to find her. Not for the last… 30 years.”

The ‘WTF’ was written all over Jeremy’s face.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“A lot of people have seen young Ms. Gordon, or rather, heard her, over the years, but I haven’t actually heard about anyone who tried talking to her. She usually just sits in a corner and cries.” He took a deep breath. “Elisabeth is one of the ghosts of this hotel, Mr Clarkson. She was a girl who vanished about 30 years ago. Her parents were staying here… They were a couple of lowlife criminals and when they got caught, people started looking for the girl. They never found her.”

Jeremy stood, really quiet, for a long time and just looked at him. The guy was crazy! Obviously, if he thought that Jeremy was gonna fall for something like that. Something was definitely going on here. Maybe, this guy had poor little Elisabeth held prisoner and when Jeremy saw her, she had somehow managed to escape… But why didn’t she just leave? Why didn’t she tell him about it when they talked? This guy was clearly insane, so Jeremy had to tread very carefully if he wanted to save Elisabeth and get her out.

“Ok”, he said, nodding stiffly, “you’re probably right, I’m gonna go back to bed. Good night, Mr Wahlberg! I’ll see you in the morning!”

He basically ran back upstairs, into the room he shared with Jon, and locked the door.

“Holy fuck!”

Someone had to do something, before that sicko did something to Elisabeth.

\----------------------------------------------

Sally was not even half awake when she got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Danny was still sleeping and she stumbled her way to the toilet, her brain already trying to get back to the dream she’d had. It was such a lovely dream, and she replayed it in her head as she sat down, trying to maintain the feeling of complete and utter happiness that the dream had filled her with. It involved Danny, and a couple of kids and they had been playing by the pool. Danny had been wearing his tight red speedos and Sally had admonished him for wearing them, but then she had laughed and she and the kids had pushed Danny into the pool. They had laughed and then they had all jumped in to join him in the warm water. The perfect family! She yawned as she got up, and washer her hands. Her entire body was just waiting for that precious moment when her head hit the pillow again, to get back to that wonderful dream about her and Danny’s future together.

It wasn’t until she looked into the mirror that she noticed that she wasn’t alone. That someone was standing by her. It wasn’t until it was raised that she saw the ax.

She was dead before her brain could even think about crying out for help.


	6. Chapter 6

Joe was no stranger to sleeping in different beds every other night, so he slept like a baby, until a bright morning sun shone right in his face. He took a few seconds to recall where he was and for his body to wake up. No weird ghost ladies had disturbed him, which didn’t really surprise him. It was rather disappointing, though, because it would have been cool to actually see one. Not that he believed in ghosts, it just would have been cool.

Oh, well, he had plenty of time, and it was Halloween, after all.

He looked over at the other bed to see if Jordan was awake. But no, not only was he still asleep, he had company.

Joe sat up in bed and tilted his head slightly to the right as he watched them sleep, a tiny smile on his lips. Jon had his arm around Jordan, holding him close, almost like he was trying to protect him. Joe had no idea when Jon had showed up, but it had to have been after 2 a.m, which was when Joe had finally fallen asleep. Most of the others had stayed up until 2 or 3, telling ghost stories and listening to Donnie brag about his hotel. Ok, he might not have meant it to sound like bragging, he was just showing his love for the place where he grew up, but that’s how Joe saw it.

Jordan made a little grunt and started to move around a bit and Joe watched as Jon followed his movements, in perfect synchronization. It probably came with being so close. Joe got up, still smiling to himself, and went to take a piss.

There was no weird ghost lady in the bathroom, either. Nothing to write down in the journals, then. He hoped that at least one of the others had had some kind of encounter during the night.

He was washing his hands when he heard the scream.

\---------------------------------------------

Helen woke up from a wonderful dream where she was entertaining a whole group of hot guys. She was still in a really good mood when she got up. Sally’s bed was empty and Helen shook her head at her new friend’s absence. She couldn’t help but wonder what it was like to be so much in love that you couldn’t stand to be away from each other, even for one night. Helen had never been in love, but it sounded really nice. She just hadn’t met that special someone that made her heart beat faster.

She got dressed and was just about to check her phone for texts (not quite awake enough to remember that the phones weren’t working), when she noticed the salt by the window… that someone had brushed away.

“No! No, no, no, no, no… Shit! Shit, shit, shit….”

She turned around, groaning when she noticed that someone had done the same by the door. Heart beating away like crazy, she ran to her bag to get the salt.

“Oh, Sally, what the hell… This is bad, this is really, really bad…”

She was just finishing up salting the windows when she heard the scream.

\----------------------------------------

Jeremy went straight from the bed to the shower. All night long, he’d had these weird dreams about people he didn’t even know, and they all kept on calling for him. At one point, he’d thought that he saw hos two best buds, standing on a boat, reaching out to him to get him to join them, but he could never quite reach them. He desperately needed a shower to get the crazy off of him (he would be dead before he used the word ‘fear’. He was not afraid, he just didn’t like crazy!)

Helen would probably love to have dreams like that, that bitch was already as crazy as they come. Hell, for all he knew, she’d probably had thousands of dreams like that in her life and never even thought twice about it. Weird was normal to that girl. And he really didn’t like her. He had been glaring at her all evening, all through dinner, and after dinner, just to make sure that she didn’t look his way or tried some weird-ass voodoo on him. He also felt, for some reason, that he had to keep a close eye on her to keep her from running off on her own. This place was not safe for pretty girls and if she…

Wait! WHAT?!

He blinked a few times. Nope, he was just imagining things. There was certainly nothing pretty about Helen, or her eyes, or that hair, and absolutely nothing attractive at all about that body of her’s and when did he go from ‘pretty’ to attractive’ all of a sudden?

He had his hand firmly wrapped around himself, when he heard the scream.

\----------------------------------------

Mel and Reema had spent almost all night talking about the secret they had uncovered. All throughout dinner, they kept watching, noticing details that before might have seemed innocent, but now seemed to hold new meaning and hidden messages. And it was the first thing on their minds when they woke up.

“What are we going to do?” Mel asked for the seventh time.

“Should we tell them?” Reema asked for the fifth time.

Their hours-long conversation had boiled down to those two questions and so far, the only answer that could come up with for both of those questions was ‘I don’t know!’

“Is it possible…” Reema started, knowing that the answer would be ‘no’, and asking anyway, “that we imagined everything? That they somehow knew that we were watching and only did it to mess with our heads?”

Mel didn’t answer that one, she just gave her friend a look.

They were no closer to an answer to their questions when they heard the scream.

\-----------------------------------------------

Danny woke up alone and was actually grateful. The door to the bathroom was slightly ajar, and he figured that Sally would probably be a few minutes. The place next to him was cold, as if she had been on the toilet a really long time.

“You ok in there, babygirl?” he asked, yawning at the last word. No response. He removed the earplugs and tried again. Nothing! Then again, who would want to keep a conversation going while they were taking a dump? He grinned as he got out of bed as quietly as he could. He put on his sweat pants and a tank top, getting ready for his morning run. As soon as he got back, he was going to take Sally’s hand, get down on one knee and ask her to be his forever.

“I’m going out for a run, Sal”, he said, gently tapping on the door to the bathroom, “I’ll be back in…”

She was lying on the floor. 

He knew she was dead!

Even without the blood that soaked her hair, or the wound that almost, but not quite, had separated her head from her body, or the emptiness of her lifeless eyes, he knew she was dead.

He knew, and yet somehow, he didn’t!

Because it didn’t make sense. Why was she dead? How could she be dead? Was he still dreaming?

“Sal?”

No response. He took a step forward.

“Babygirl?”

His foot stepped in something cold and sticky and when he looked down, he realized that he was standing in Sally’s blood.

That’s when he screamed.

“HELP! SOMEBODY! HELP!”

\----------------------------------------------------

It was really quiet. Danny knew there were people in the room, he could see them moving around, some of them sitting right next to him on the bed… But he couldn’t hear them. His ears were ringing. A constant ringing that only became louder and louder and behind it all… he heard Sally laughing.

Someone’s hands were on his knees, but he couldn’t see who it was. He realized that his eyes were closed and opened them to find Jordan crouching down in front of him, talking to him. Danny had no idea what he was saying. Slowly, the ringing in his ears subsided and Jordan’s voice filtered through.

“Danny… You in there? Danny, are you listening to me?”

Danny blinked a few times. The noises in the room came rushing towards him, crying, sobbing, everyone talking at once, looking at him, pointing towards the bathroom, where Sally…

“Sal…”

“Danny, what happened?”

What happened? Danny wasn’t sure that he understood the question. Sally was… in there…

“I woke up… I found her… That’s all I know!”

“It’s my fault!” a voice suddenly broke through the fog and Danny looked to the right and saw Helen standing in a corner, arms wrapped around herself as tears ran down her face. She wasn’t looking at anyone in particular; she was staring at the floor, repeating the same words over and over again. “It’s my fault! It’s my fault, it’s all my fault!”

Danny looked around as the rest of the world came back to him. People were crying. Mel and Reema stood with two other girls, sobbing as if they had lost their best friend. Professor Starr was swearing as he tried using his phone, which was still not working, apparently. He saw the back of Jon as he and Joe whispered about something. Mr Wahlberg stood by the window, looking out. He seemed a bit tense, actually.

What was odd, though, was the way Jeremy stood so close to Helen, keeping an eye on her. Danny wasn’t sure if Jeremy himself knew, or even noticed, that he was no more than three feet away, his arms still, ready to catch the young woman, should the need arise, if she were to fall or pass out.

He looked down at his hands and noticed that he was still dressed for his run.

Yes, that’s what he should do. He should go for a run. He needed the fresh air.

“I’m gonna go for a run!”

Jordan looked up at him, frowning.

“Danny, are you sure that’s a good idea? Don’t you think that you should…”

But Danny was already at the door, clearly not interested in anything his friend had to say.

\----------------------------------------------------

“You can’t be serious?” Joe said in a hushed tone as Jon finished telling him his theory.

“Joe, we’ve been all over this place, seen every possible hide-out. This group right here, we’re the only people inside this hotel. Out of all of us, can you think of anyone who might want to hurt Sally Williams?”

“But a ghost?”

Jon shrugged. He hadn’t really expected Joey to believe him, but right now, that was the only thing that made sense. Because everyone loved Sally. She was sweet, she had an infectious laugh, she knew a ton of dirty jokes and she was head over heels in love with Danny. The girl had no enemies, no one who disliked her in any way.

Who- or whatever it was that had done this… He swallowed… the sheer brutality of it, it was enough to make him feel sick…

“She didn’t deserve this!” he said.

“No, she didn’t! Not her! So who would do something so… I mean… Why her? Why Sally?”

Jon shook his head, he had no idea. He was just about to look over at the bed to see if Jordan had any luck in getting through to Danny, when the door to the hotel room flew open and a furious Danny all but ran across the room over to the window, grabbed Donnie and slammed him, head first, into the nearest wall.

“Hey!” Jon didn’t even know that he was walking until he had Danny’s arms locked behind him, pulling him away. Joe and Jordan came to help out, which was probably a good thing. A furious Danny Wood was like a wild bear and he kept on screaming at Donnie, who was holding a hand to his nose.

“Danny!”

“What the hell, dude, calm down!”

“What’s going on?”

“The doors are locked!”

“The what?”

“The fucking DOORS are fucking LOCKED. Every single fucking one of them! HE did this! He planned it right from the start, he planned the whole thing. The cellphones not working, the way he just ‘happened’ to tell us what happened to his mom, all those ghost stories he told us last night and that… shameless flirting with Jon, right in front of Jordan…”

“Hey!”

“He planned all of it! He’s some… fucked up psycho mass-murdering freak who’s gonna kill all of us… and he started with Sally!”

“Danny, listen to yourself; this is insane! Donnie didn’t do this, trust me. You’ve been through something devastating, and I am so sorry for your loss, but going around accusing innocent people of being mass murderers is not gonna bring Sally back.”

“What about Elisabeth?” Jeremy suddenly asked, taking a step closer. “What did you do to her?”

“Who’s Elisabeth?”

“She’s a little girl here at the hotel, he’s kidnapped her or something. And when I asked him about it, he got really weird and basically told me to mind my own business and forget the whole thing. –What happened, Mr Wahlberg, was I getting to close to the truth?”

Jon looked over at Donnie.

“What’s he talking about?”

“Elisabeth Marie Gordon!” Donnie muttered, tending to his broken nose.

“Elis… Wait, you saw a ghost?!”

“What?”

“No! She’s not a ghost, she’s a little girl and she’s trapped here, because that freak show over there took her from her parents!”

“Jeremy… I'm curious, what did she look like… this girl?”


	7. Chapter 7

Jeremy wasn’t too fond of suddenly being the center of attention… Ok, he loved being the center of attention, he reveled in it, but he wanted it to be on his terms. He chose the time and the place to steal the show. But he ignored the feeling in his gut and answered the professor:

“Six, maybe seven years old, blond hair…she had a white cotton dress… her face was dirty, she had been crying and she said that… she told me that her parents had told her to wait for them, to stay hidden, but I guess Pervy Perverson over there…”

“Wait, you talked to her?” Helen suddenly asked, incredulously, sounding just like Mr Wahlberg had done, when he asked that exact same question. What the hell, why did that surprise people, he did know how to talk to kids. He might not like them, but he had people skills… Ok, so he didn’t have people skills, per say, but when a pretty little girl is crying outside your hotel room, you do your best to comfort her… or was he missing something?

“Eh, yeah, I do know how to talk to people! Anyway, I could tell that she was scared, and hungry…” He threw an accusing look at Mr Wahlberg, hoping that it would make that pervert at least have the decency to look guilty, but the only thing he found, was pity. Jeremy hated pity!

“Why don’t we just check the cameras?” Reema interrupted, drawing everyone’s attention away from Jeremy.

“I don’t think we can get any information from the cameras, Ms Zardeh, why would…”

“Not those cameras, professor, the security cameras! The one in the wall!”

“Security cameras?”

Reema took a deep breath.

“Every hotel has security cameras, whether they admit to it or not, and this one does too, right, Mr Wahlberg?”

“Well, yes, she does, but they’re not working. Those cameras haven’t worked in decades. We won’t get any information out of them, and we won’t…”

“Everybody shut up! I want to know who did this to Sally! I want to know why the doors are locked, and I would very much like to know why the phones aren’t working, and why Mr Wahlberg here is talking about ghosts, but at the moment, it doesn’t seem as if either one of you is gonna provide me with a suitable answer. So, if you wouldn’t mind getting out of here, and give me a few minutes alone with my girlfriend.”

“Danny…”

“Now! Please!”

So they left. Jeremy took it upon himself to see if Danny had been right about the doors and took off as soon as he got out from Danny’s room. Starr called out after him, but Jeremy kept on running.

“I’ll go get him, professor!”

“No! Absolutely not! We have an innocent young woman lying dead in there and no way of contacting the outside world, so until we start making some sense out of all of this, no one, and I do mean no one, is to run off on their own, is that understood? I don’t care if you have to use the bathroom, you do not go anywhere alone!”

“Sally was with Danny all night!” One of the girls pointed out. “How do we know for sure that he’s not the one who…”

Mel gave the girl a hard slap to shut her up.

“You shut your god damn face, Jenny McCarthy! He was gonna ask her to marry him!”

“So maybe she turned him down and he snapped?”

“Seriously? Have you seen them together?! They already know the names of their kids, do you honestly think that she would turn him down?”

“Yeah, but think about it, though! That’s a good thing! Because if it is Danny, then… he should be done by now, right? Sal turned him down, he killed her, end of story… But if it’s not Danny, then there’s a killer… somewhere in this hotel… and we have no way of knowing what his motivations are. Anyone of us could be the next one to get axed.”

“Only one way to find out for sure, isn’t there?” Mel snarled. “If we leave you her for a while and you’re still alive when we come back…”

“Ok, enough! What the hell is wrong with the two of you? A person is dead! Ok? Sally is dead and you two are bitching like a couple of…”

“Bitches?” Jordan suggested. Helen ignored him.

“My point is that we should work together, and find a way to get out of here and contact someone, not be at each other’s throats. -Mel, please…? –Jenny?”

Reema nodded.

“She’s right! This is pointless!”

But Mel was really on a roll and had no intention of slowing down.

“You know, Jen, you’re so quick at pointing fingers at others, what about you? Where were you last night?”

“Mel, come on, give it up…”

“That’s none of your business, shorty!” Jenny all but stuck out her tongue at Mel.

“See, that’s where you’re wrong. Right now, it’s everyone’s business. Sally has been murdered, Jen! Someone in this hotel killed her! And I know for a fact that Danny didn’t do it! What I do want to know, is where you were last night?”

“Well… I don’t really like to kiss and tell…” Jenny started.

“Since when?” Mel muttered.

“But" Jenny went on, ignoring Mel's comment, "if you must know… I spent the night with Mr Wahlberg!”

The girls around her all stared at Jenny, their mouths open. Reema quickly looked over to where Mr Wahlberg was standing, talking about something with Jon. Even from a distance, she could see the sexual tension between them.

“I couldn’t sleep”, Jenny said, her voice low, but making sure that her audience heard every single word., “all those ghost stories had me really freaked out, so I was heading for the kitchen, for a glass of water, when Mr… when Donnie showed up. He took me to his room, one thing led to another…”

“You’re so full of shit, Jen!”

“What?”

“I mean, everybody know that you’re a skank, but really, you expect us to buy into that bullshit?”

Jenny was turning a not so flattering shade of red.

“Did you just call me a liar?” she asked.

“No, I called you a skank… and a liar!” Mel said with a cold smirk.

\----------------------------------------------

“I am so sorry about this”, Jon said for the third time as he tried not to stare too hard at Donnie’s broken nose.

“I told you, it’s ok, I understand! Really! I would probably have done the same, had it been me.”

Jon really didn’t want to think about what he would have done if he had been where Danny was right now. And he absolutely didn’t want to think about what Jordan would have done.

“Yeah, Jordan said it was like talking to a zombie, he got no reaction at all when we showed up, he just sat there, not even moving… It was heartbreaking…”

“Oh yeah, you got here first, didn’t you, you and… your ‘brother’…”

Jon took a deep breath. He really should have said something before, like last night, during dinner, or after dinner, or hell, even before dinner, but he honestly did not know how to start that kind of conversation. Now was probably the worst possible time.

“Look, I… It wasn’t…”

“I have brothers of my own, you know, but we’re not ‘that’ close…”

He was grinning, so that was a good sign. Jon could work with this. He just had to stick to the story him and Jordan made up all those months ago.

“Yeah, yeah, ok, very funny, I’m glad you’re enjoying my embarrassment here…”

“No, no, just intrigued, that’s all!” Donnie, said, still grinning at him. “When did this start?”

“When I was 9!”

He was so shocked at what he had said that he couldn’t prevent a gasp. What the hell did he just say?!

The smile was slowly fading from Donnie’s lips.

“…What?”

“Mom had just come home from the hospital with our new sister and we had to…”

“No, no, wait, wait, what are you… Are you serious?!”

Jon’s heart was pounding so hard that it hurt, but when he opened his mouth, all he said was:

“Like a heart attack!”

He was sweating all over. He couldn’t lie. It was like it was physically impossible for him to lie to this man. Normally, that would fill him with wonder, now; he was petrified.

Donnie looked from him over to Jordan who were discussing something with Joe and professor Starr.

“But you…”

“Yeah!”

“He’s your…”

“Yeah!”

“You two are…”

Jon looked down at his hands, and frowned a bit. They weren’t shaking. Inside, he was coming apart, but outside showed nothing.

“Yeah!”

“But, but… Wait who else knows about this?”

Yeah, cause him and Jordan was broadcasting it all over town. Seriously!

“No one!”

“So… Why did you tell me? You had no reason to!”

“I don’t know”, Jon lowered his voice to a whisper. “I can’t seem to be able to lie to you… Why is that, what can’t I lie to you?”

Donnie stared at him for a few seconds, a strange look in his eyes.

“You promised not to!” he said, his words barely audible, but said with strong conviction. Jon had no memory of ever doing that… Or did he?

“When did I…” He thought back and then, he remembered. “It was raining, wasn’t it?” he said, a faraway look in his eyes. “You were leaving…” He remembered it so clearly now, as if it had happened yesterday. He remembered running through the court yard, he remembered his father screaming for him to come back, he remembered the tears in his eyes as he ran away from the castle, away from the servants, right into the arms of the one who was the other half of his soul. He remembered them holding each other, hiding from the rain and the soldiers, hiding from his father’s men… “I couldn’t go with you…”

Donnie smiled sadly.

“Your hair was so long… I miss that…”

Jon blinked a few times, real world rushing in like a tidal wave and he realized that he was crying. Why was he crying? He didn’t feel sad, he felt… happy. More than happy, he felt euphoric… and none of it made any sense to him, and yet, he understood perfectly.

But despite that, despite knowing already, he had to ask, had to say the words:

“Ok, what is this, who… Who are you?”

“You know who I am… I am yours… like I have always been!”

Jon was about to ask what that meant, even though he already knew, when there was a very distinct sound of someone getting thoroughly bitch-slapped. They both turned around, just in time to see Mel and Jenny engage in a brief, but vicious cat fight. It ended as abruptly as it had started. Reema and Starr separated the two. Furious like a tiger, Jenny tried to head-butt the man holding her, causing him to stumble a bit and took a step back to steady himself.

No one really knew what happened next.

For a really long second, everything seemed to stop. Nobody moved, nobody spoke, nobody breathed. Time stopped! Professor Starr looked really surprised, in that hour-long split-second, before he fell backwards down the stairs, his death-grip on Jenny causing her to fall down with him.

There was a sickening sound of something breaking as they reached the bottom of the stairs, and then…

Silence.

In the dance hall, the huge grandfather clock started ticking.


	8. Chapter 8

For a few, heartstopping moments, nobody moved. And then, then all moved at once.

“Oh, my god!”

“Professor?”

“Professor, are you ok?!”

They all ran down the stairs, looking for signs of life, everyone drawing a deep sigh of relief as they saw Starr start to move.

“Oh, my god!”

“Is he alive?!

“He’s breathing!” Joe kneeled down next to the professor. “He landed on Jenny and she…” he stopped as he saw the was Jenny’s unseeing eyes were staring at him. Her neck appeared to be broken, there was no way any human could survive a fall like that and end up with their heads twisted that way. Starr must have somehow landed on her head and… “Eww!”

“Help him up!”

“Be careful, he might have broken something!”

“Professor, can you hear me? Are you hurt?

“My legs… my arm… can’t move my arm… Jenny?”

They all exchanged looks of doubt. Should they tell him the truth? Well, there was no point in denying it, was there?

“I’m sorry, professor, she didn’t make it!

“She saved your life!”

“The main office is right this way”, Donnie said, pointing, “we need to put him down on a couch or something.”

“What he needs is a hospital!” Jordan pointed out, his voice slightly raised.

“And how do you suppose we contact them? The phones aren’t working, the doors and windows are locked, and your professor needs to lie down. Now, unless anyone has got some other brilliant idea on how to fix this, I suggest you help me get this man into the office, and… we need to do something about her, as well.”

Jon, Jordan, Donnie and Joe took great care in lifting Starr from the floor, trying really hard not to look too much on the twisted body underneath him, and carried him into Donnie’s office where they placed him on the couch.

“Alright”, Donnie said, looking at the students gathered around in his office, “I want to know exactly what the hell happened out there?!”

“I don’t know!”

“One minute they’re talking, and the next thing I know…”

“Jenny said some things”, Reema explained, “lying through her teeth about… something, and Mel called her on it. Things got violent, we separated them and she… I don’t know… They fell down the stairs.”

“Look, I didn’t… She wasn’t my favorite person in the world, but I didn’t… I mean; she was a stuck up bitch and I wanted her dead, but I didn’t actually want it to happen… You know?”

Donnie looked over at the young woman, obviously overcome with misplaced guilt. Oh, he knew, better than she could ever understand. But there was no way he would ever tell anyone about that. It was a secret he would take to his grave. No one could ever know the truth about what happened.

“Well, what did she say that got you so upset?” Jordan asked.

“She said that she thought Danny killed Sally, because she had turned him down when he proposed”, Mel muttered, not really caring about that whole ‘do not speak ill of the dead’-crap.

“What?!”

“That’s insane!”

“That’s what I said! But she wouldn’t shut up about it and then, she… She claimed that she had spent last night doing the dirty… with you, Mr Wahlberg.”

Donnie raised an eyebrow.

“Excuse me?”

“She did what?!”

“No one believed her!” Mel quickly reassured them. “I told her that we all knew that she was lying and she… said some things about me that I didn’t appreciate so I… I slapped her! But I didn’t want her to die!”

“She said that she spent the night with me?”

“Yes! I’m sorry!”

“Well… She wasn’t technically lying…”

There was about 1.2 seconds of complete silence.

“What?” Mel said.

“What?” Jordan repeated.

“WHAT?!” came from Jon, who then looked over at Jordan, looking extremely guilty.

“I said ‘technically’!” Donnie reminded them, looking only at Jon when he spoke. “I ran into her last night. She was shaken up pretty badly and said that she was heading for the kitchen for a glass of water… which I now realize might have been a lie, because she was going the wrong way. I offered to go get a glass of water for her and she… not so subtly… made a move on me.”

“She… made…”

“I told her, in no uncertain terms, that I was taken and therefore not interested, she… made a bit of a scene and then she stormed off. And that was it.

“Sure sounds like her.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t put it past her… That lying skank!”

“You told her you were taken?” Jon seemed to find that part particularly interesting, momentarily forgetting, or just not caring, that Jordan was glaring at him, shooting daggers at both him and Donnie.

“Well, I kinda had to, I didn’t think the ‘you’re not my type’ would have worked with her. She’s not the first young lady to proposition me; I do know how to deal with them. Hell, I used to date one who was just like that and…

“Are you?”

“What? Taken? Can I get back to you on that one? You know, when we’re not surrounded by people and there’s a killer running around in my hotel.”

\---------------------------------------

Danny had moved from the bed to the bathroom, forcing himself to sit next to the body of his dead girlfriend. He didn’t cry. Not a single tear. Because he knew that if he started crying, he would never be able to stop. So he kept it in, swallowing hard over and over to get rid of the lump in his throat that was making it hard for him to breathe.

Looking down, his eyes fell on Sally’s hand. There was something missing, it looked… naked. He got up and went to get the little velvet box with the engagement ring inside. Taking out the ring, he went back to the bathroom and sat back down next to Sally. He gently took her hand in his and placed the ring on her finger.

It fit perfectly, just like he knew it would.

“I, Daniel William Wood”, he whispered, clutching her hand, “take you… Sally Ann Williams… to be my wife… forever and ever… erm… in sickness and health, life and death, forsaking all others…”

He wasn’t about to say ‘til death do us part’, he just couldn’t form the words. Instead he leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on her cold lips.

“Wait for me, babygirl”, he whispered, his heart beating furiously in his chest, “I won’t be long!”

He kissed her again. They would be together again! He would make sure of it!

What was the point of living if the person who made it all worthwhile was no longer there?

\-----------------------------------------

Jeremy had slowed down from running to walking, checking every door he could find, every window he saw, to see if there was a way out. He wasn’t entirely sure how to get back to the others, but it didn’t bother him much. He was a big boy, he could take care of himself.

“Jemmy!”

He stopped. What the hell?!

“Elisabeth?”

She giggled. A part of him was relieved to hear it, another part was annoyed that she was busy playing when he was trying to find a way out for her.

“I can hear you, princess, keep talking!”

“Jemmy, come play with me!”

Jeremy rolled his eyes. Damn kids!

“I’m coming, princess, I need to find a way out of here so that…”

“You can’t leave!” Suddenly that sweet voice had a strange hardness and he slowed down a bit. It should probably freak her out that he could hear the girl talk as if she was right next to him, but he couldn’t see her anywhere.

He scoffed at himself. Yeah, if you were a freak who believed in ghosts, probably, but Jeremy didn’t believe in ghosts!

“You have to stay here, with me!” Elisabeth’s voice said, and even though it sounded playful, that hardness was still there. It made him a bit uncomfortable. She was a six year old kid, she wasn’t even supposed to know how to sound hard. “We’ll be best friends forever!”

“Yeah, hate to break it to you, kid, but ‘forever’ is a damn long time and there is no way I am spending another minute in this godforsaken dump.”

Silence. Jeremy had a strange thought that he had upset her somehow. He kept walking, opening yet another door to yet another hotel room, only to find it empty. He walked over to the window to open it. This one was stuck, too. It was as if someone had glued them shut.

“You can’t leave!” Elisabeth said again, and he jumped back, because the girl was actually standing right beside him, looking at him with her big, innocent eyes. “You have to help me!”

“Fuck, kid, where did you come from?”

She looked very serious now, standing there in her lovely dress, her face dirty.

“You have to help me, Jemmy, you have to find me!”

What the fuck?!

“Find you? What are you talking about?”

“Jeremy?” a voice from the door suddenly interrupted him and he saw Helen coming towards him. “Who were you talking to?”

Blinking, Jeremy looked to his side, only to find that Elisabeth was gone. There was no way he would not have heard her run off, so where the hell did she go? He looked around, confused, as Helen came closer.

“Jeremy”, she said, softly, “who were you talking to just now?”

“Why do you care? What are you doing here, anyway?”

She looked sad and it confused him even more. He didn’t like being confused.

“There’s been an accident… Professor Starr, he… Him and Jenny, they fell down the stairs…”

Jeremy blinked. What the hell was going on in this place?

“Is he ok?”

“His arm might be broken and he couldn’t walk, they had to carry him into Mr Wahlberg’s office. Have you checked all the doors?”

“And the windows! Looks like we’re stuck here. Pervy Perverson has planned all of this, I just know it!”

She actually looked offended.

“His name is Donald!” she pointed out.

“Whatever, I like Pervy Perverson better!”

“Why are you always like this, Jeremy? I know you are a nice guy, so what’s with the big, bad bully-act? Huh? Is it because you’re afraid to let anyone close, is that it? Because if it is, it’s working!”

He was really sick and tired of this one always poking her nose in his business, getting under his skin like that.

“Listen, freak show, you have no right sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. You don’t know me, you don’t know the first thing about me.”

“And whose fault is that? Come on, we should get back to the others.”

“You’re not serious?! We can’t leave, Elisabeth is…”

“Elisabeth is a ghost, Jeremy, the ghost of a girl who has been dead for decades. There’s nothing you can do for her, so let’s just go, ok?”

Jeremy could have sworn that he heard Elisabeth just then, could have sworn that he saw her in the corner of his eye, but when he looked closer, there was nothing there. No Elisabeth. Still confused, he followed Helen out into the corridor. And that’s when it hit him.

“What about Jenny?” he asked. “Is she ok?”

“She… He landed on her! She died saving his life!”

“Fuck!”

“Yeah… You know about the rumor, right? That she was having an affair with Starr!”

That made him stop and stare at her, and damn, but her eyes were big!

“You’re shitting me? How do you know that?”

She shrugged.

“You’d be surprised how people talk when they think the weird girl is in a world of her own.”

“Fuck… Jenny and Starr?”

“She tried some bullshit story about spending the night with Mr Wahlberg, but Mel totally called her on it.”

“Seriously?! The guy has been eye-fucking Jon ever since we got here, there’s no fucking way he would go for Jenny!”

“That’s what I thought! Anyway, bitch fight ensues, Starr and the others tried to pull them apart and next thing you know, they fall down the stairs. Starr landed on jenny, so she probably died saving his life.

“Shit…”

“I know! As soon as I saw that she was dead, I came to find you.”

“Yeah… Yeah, I… Wait!”

“What?” And damnit, if her eyes didn’t get even bigger when she was confused. It bugged him, for some reason.

“Did you tell anyone that you were gonna go look for me?”

“No time, I just took off… Why?”

“You stupid bitch! There’s a killer running around in this hotel, Hel, no one is supposed to be going off on their own, it’s not safe!”

“You did!”

“Yeah, well, I can take care of myself!”

“And I can’t?” She was getting pissed, he could tell by the tone in her voice. In a way, it reminded him about the way Elisabeth had sounded earlier and he felt uncomfortable again. Couldn’t these girls see that he was just looking out for them?!

“Against a vicious killer? Do you really want to find out?! Let’s just get out of here!”

He wasn’t sure when he had taken her hand, but he didn’t let go. She might run off and get herself killed. He couldn’t have that on his conscience. She was a freak, sure, but nobody deserved what had happened to Sally.

The thought of someone chopping Helen’s head off with an axe suddenly attacked him and his grip on her hand hardened. Not on his watch! Whoever wanted a piece of her would have to go through him first!


	9. Chapter 9

Danny felt a strange sense of peace when he left the hotel room. He knew exactly what he had to do now, and it filled him with a calm resolve.

Sally was dead. Danny was going to follow her.

It really was that simple!

He couldn’t go on living without her; he didn’t want to. So he walked down the stairs, not even stopping to look at the dead body lying on the floor. The rest of the world didn’t matter to him anymore.

Danny kept on walking until he came to the huge glass doors leading to the outside pool. It looked so calm and inconspicuous and a lot less mysterious in the daylight. He had always enjoyed swimming. They had agreed, early on, that after the wedding, but before the kids were born, they would start building a pool in the backyard.

He put his hand on the glass door and pushed. It opened quietly, welcoming him outside. A small part of him briefly thought about running back to the others and inform them that they now had a way out, but as he looked at the pool, he found that it was somehow… cleaner. And he could have sworn that he heard the laughter of children. He took a step forward and this time, he saw that the two children running around in their bathing suits was running towards their mother, who was in the pool, splashing water at them. The two girls jumped in (Fearless, just like their mother, Danny thought) and squealed with joy. Danny smiled to himself. The perfect family.

And then Sally looked up and saw him.

“Girls!” she said, gathering their two daughters around her. “Look, there’s daddy!”

“Daddy!”

“Come join us, daddy!”

His smile grew wider, looking at his family. Sally looked at him, all the love in the world shining from her eyes and Danny nodded as he walked closer to the edge.

“You girls think daddy should get in?” he asked and they happily agreed. Knowing that his family was waiting for him, Danny took the final step and fell into the pool.

He could still hear his three darling girls laugh with joy as water filled his lungs and the world slowly turned to black around him.

\--------------------------------------------------

“This is so fucked up!” Reema whispered to her friend as they sat together in the corner of Donnie’s office. “I keep expecting Sally to come running down the stairs, shouting ‘Happy Halloween’ or some shit like that.”

“Yeah, I know!” Mel agreed. “I’m really scared, Ree, what the hell is going on here?! I mean… fucking ghosts, dude, Sally getting axed, Jon and Jordan turn out to be b…”

“Turn out to be what?” a familiar voice interrupted and Mel actually jumped when Jordan came towards them.

“I…”

“… Breaking up… At least… that’s what it looks like… to me…”

Jordan looked over to the desk where Jon was sitting, not taking his eyes of Donnie for a single second. Reema felt bad for him.

“Oh…”

“I’m sorry, J… I mean… It’s never easy to lose someone you love to someone else. And being as close as you two are… it must be like losing a… brother… as well as a… lover…”

Mel discreetly kicked Reema’s leg, giving her a ‘WTF’-look. Before the awkward situation could get any more awkward, Donnie suddenly raised his voice.

“Ok, people, I know this situation is… beyond crazy, but we all need to eat. We need our strength So, I’m suggesting that we go to the kitchen and make some breakfast.”

As if on cue, their bellies started growling, reminding them that they had been up for hours and still hadn’t had anything to eat. To be fair, they’d had other things on their minds.

“That’s a good idea!”

“Strength in numbers, guys, we all go! –Mel! Go get Danny, he shouldn’t be alone right now.”

“Ok!” Mel got up and moved towards the door. “Hey, where’s Jeremy, has anyone seen him?”

“Right here!” a voice said not two seconds later as Jeremy walked in, hand-in-hand with Helen. Mel looked over at Jordan and Reema and raised an eyebrow ‘When did that happen?’, but they looked as surprised as her. “All the doors and windows are officially locked. We couldn’t even break the glass.”

“We tried, though!” Helen pointed out, “but no dice on that one… Did someone mention food?”

Mel pointed towards Donnie ‘Talk to him’ and left the room. Jeremy and Helen ignored Donnie, however, and they both walked over to the couch, where professor Starr was currently lying, alive, but with a badly twisted arm.

“Are you alright, professor? Helen asked, still holding on to Jeremy’s hand. Starr nodded briefly.

“My arm is broken… but I’ll live, thanks!”

“So, if we’re all going to get something to eat, what about him?” Jordan asked, indicating the injured professor. “Should we really leave him alone like this? Unless you were planning on carrying him all the way to the kitchen?”

“I’ll be fine! You kids need nourishment!”

“No way, we aint leaving you alone, not when there’s a killer running around in here.”

"We need to salt the room, to keep him safe." Helen pointed out.

"Salt?" Donnie looked somewhat sceptical.

"Yeah! Salt is pure, ghosts can be repelled by salt. They can't cross a line made of salt. If you go to the kitchen and find some salt, we can go look for Danny after."

"Fuck, your brain must be on permanent vacation, isn't it?" Jeremy asked, which only ended with Jon punching him on the arm and a weak, but still stern "Mr Clarkson, that's enough!" from professor Starr.

Suddenly, Mel came running back inside.

“He’s not there!”

“What?”

“What do you mean ‘not there’?”

“I mean”, Mel said, obviously trying not to panic, “He’s not… there! His physical being was not present within the vicinity of the room, he was not… there!”

There was a moment of complete silence, and then, everybody started talking at once. Finally, Donnie silenced them all.

“Right! We need to find Danny! We should split up; we’d cover more ground that way.”

“Wait, what?!" Jeremy looked aghast. "Not 20 seconds ago, you were all ‘we have to stay together, no matter what’ and now you want to split us up?”

“Ok, just… Mel, you, Ree, Jeremy, Jordan and…”

Helen sighed.

“Helen!” she reminded him.

“You guys go through the ground floor, see if you can find Danny. I’ll go with Donnie, Joe and Nat to check upstairs.”

“I don’t like it!” Jordan muttered, but didn't elaborate on whether or not it was the 'splitting up'-part or the 'Jon going off somewhere with Donnie, without him'-part that he didn't like.

“You don’t have to like it, dude, just do it”, Jeremy said, a sneer in his voice, as if he considered himself a lot braver than the others. “We were checking most of the ground floor, though, me and Hel, we would have seen him. But I figure we should find him sooner rather than later, before he offs himself.”

“Dude!”

“What? We’re all thinking it, I just have the guts to say it out loud; Danny can’t function without Sal. He’s got ‘suicidal’ written all over his face, and we should get a move on if we want to find him alive, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Jeremy’s right!” Helen said, surprising everyone, including Jeremy. “I think we need to move fast.”

“Yeah, the sooner-the better! Let’s just split up in two groups, we will search the floors and meet up in the kitchen. Since we won’t be able to communicate, if you find Danny, you will need to contact us somehow.”

“Why not use the surveillance cameras?” Reema asked.

“Those things don’t work, they haven’t worked properly for over 20 years.”

“But they worked yesterday!” she objected. “We could see every room.”

Donnie took a step closer.

“What are you talking about?

“She’s right”, Mel jumped in, “we saw Danny practicing his proposal and we saw Jon and Jordan talking about…”

“Wait, what?”

The two young men approached Reema and Mel, trying, and failing, to not appear as nervous as they probably were.

“You saw… You heard… What did you hear?!”

“Nothing!!” Mel said, answering before they had even finished asking the question. “There was no sound! We just saw you talking! That’s it!”

“But that’s impossible”, Donnie insisted, “those cameras are broken, they… aren’t supposed to work.”

“In a haunted hotel? It wouldn’t surprise me one bit. We could at least check them out. We might get lucky!”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

“Something’s not right!”

Jeremy looked at the girl beside her, still clutching his hand… or was it the other way around? He wasn’t sure anymore. It was just… natural. He couldn’t risk her running off and getting herself killed, so the natural thing for him to do; was to hold her hand. And just make sure to never let go.

“They’re hiding something!”

Jeremy looked over at the others as they disappeared around a corner to what was probably some sort of control room. Hel was right, they were acting fishy, all of them. The two of them had offered to stay behind with Starr while the others went to check on the security cameras, and were standing together by the door to keep a look-out. But Starr was out like a light by now, and they really didn't have anyone else to talk to but each other.

“I could understand why Jordan would act the way he does”, Jeremy pointed out, “and Jon, I guess, but what the fuck’s wrong with Mel and Ree? They’ve never been this jumpy.”

“I could have chalked it down to just being spooked by the ghosts and spirits of this place, but I think there’s more to it than that. They know something!”

“Oh, I agree, but would you quit it with the ghost-bullshit?” He let go of her hand, as if to make a point, and almost instantly regretted it. “Seriously, this is why people think you’re a freak, when you go around, talking shit like that.”

“Why would you care?” She let their spot by the door and started searching the room, obviously looking for something, and it felt like she was almost relieved that he had let go of her hand. It pissed him off, for some reason. “Who the hell doesn’t keep salt in their office? They might as well have sent out a written invitation. Some people have no sense of… Wait! Wait, you see them, too!”

Oh, right, she was going into crazytown again. Jeremy sighed.

“You see them too, so I don’t really understand why you’re acting the way you do.”

“What the… I told you; you’re wrong, ok? I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

“Of course not! Look, Jeremy, you can deny it all you want, hell, you can deny it till the cows come home, but we both know the truth. What I don’t understand is why you would hide such a wonderful gift from everyone, including yourself.”

“Curse!”

“Huh?”

“It’s not a gift, it’s a curse!”

She abandoned her search for whatever it was and came towards him again, and the look in her eyes made his stomach feel all fluttery. That wasn’t normal; he must be coming down with something!

“You really believe that, don’t you?” she asked, looking so sympathetic that something in his chest started to ache.

“How do you think people would look at me if they thought there was something wrong with me? I’ll tell you, they would look at me like I’m some sort of…”

“…Freak?”

He looked up and their eyes met. For once, Jeremy was the one to look away first.

“Well, yeah, I guess you’re right about that. But you don’t understand what it’s like; you don’t know what would happen. It’s ok for you, you’re a nobody, but people know me! I have a reputation! If anyone were to find out about this… Hell, they might just kill me, just for keeping it a secret. I would have no one! If I told them, they would all leave, and then where would I be? Huh?”

Helen opened her mouth, probably to say something that he would vehemently object to, even though he would know it to be true in his heart, but at that very second, a loud scream echoed through the entire hotel and pretty soon, they heard people running.

“Fuck!” Jeremy swore, just as they saw the others come towards them, a look of sheer panic and devastation on their faces. Reema ran past them, tears running down her face, followed by the rest. Helen and Jeremy could only stare as they kept on running.

“Where is he?!” Jeremy finally asked.

Jordan slowed down a bit and turned towards them. His eyes were red and they could tell that he was already itching to keep running.

“We found him! He’s in the pool!”

“The… But I thought…”

“Is he ok?!” Helen asked, her big eyes watering. Jordan looked at them, not giving them an answer, and they both understood that it was a silent admission. And just like that, he turned and ran after the others.

Helen, hand over her mouth, leaned against doorframe and sobbed. Jeremy stared at her, not really liking the situation. He wasn’t altogether sure what to say or do, and he liked that even less.

Maybe it wasn’t him that was cursed.

Maybe it was this place.

Happy fucking Halloween, indeed.


End file.
